


seaglass

by bonebo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Fisting, Gangbang, Imprisonment, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Mer!Gabriel - Freeform, Mild Body Mutilation, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Squirting, gunfucking, slavery?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-10 00:42:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonebo/pseuds/bonebo
Summary: Finding the creature had been entirely by accident.-x- illustrations by ravenouscannibal.tumblr.com -x-





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all art credited to ravenouscannibal.tumblr.com <3

Finding the creature had been entirely by accident.

McCree can still remember how excited the crew had been, when they called him out of his quarters; can remember his own disbelief at seeing the mer tangled and thrashing in the fishing net, lips pulled back in a snarl that showed his fangs. His thick black tail had beat a frantic tattoo against the wet deck, while he hissed and clawed at the ropes of the net with his long black talons and glared at the crew that milled around him--they had all been curious, fascinated, but too scared to come closer, wary after hearing the stories of mer that tore men’s heads off, split them open and bled them dry. 

McCree had heard the stories, too. His boots had thudded against the wet floor as he approached, the noise loud enough to draw the mer’s attention and bring all activity on the deck to a halt.

“...well. What’ve we got here?” He had hooked a thumb in his belt loop and stared down at the merman--at least nine feet of lean, dark muscle, his tail a midnight black studded with red bioluminescent scales that gleamed when he rolled onto his grey underbelly. The creature had lifted his head to glare at McCree, pushing himself up on strong arms mottled with black like he was ready for a fight; but judging by the red flare to his heaving gills, the glitter of panic in his dark eyes, he’d not been as strong as he was trying to appear.

And McCree remembers, with no small amount of satisfaction, how easy it had been to wrangle the beast into a cell in the brig.

Where he lies now, curled up amid rags soaked with seawater--a small mercy that McCree was quick to warn him would be taken away, if he misbehaved--with his head resting on pillowed arms, eyes closed. If it wasn’t for the occasional restless flick of his notched tail, the flexing of his cloth-wrapped fists, McCree might think he was asleep.

Not that it would matter.

“Oi. Flotsam.” McCree sets down the bucket of fish carcasses he’d been carrying, and watches with a grin as the mer’s eyes slit open; he’s been down here for three days with no food, so it comes as no surprise that the smell of the corpses would rouse him. McCree pulls out his ring of keys, and makes a show of shaking them before slitting one into the lock. “You feelin’ hungry yet? I got a proposition for ya.”

The mer snarls as the cell door opens, and though it makes him frown, McCree can’t exactly blame him. Though that dark-scaled hide had been fairly scarred when they first dragged him on board, McCree and his crew’s tender mercies had put a few more wounds on the mer’s body--most notably, two long, tender-red slices down his right cheek from Chef Murphy’s fillet knife.

_(“One more slip-up like that, and you’re going on the menu, flounder,” McCree hissed, stepping between the writhing mer and his cook--it had taken three men to pull Murphy back, another to hold him still as the bite on his arm was tended to. There was rage in Murphy’s green eyes, enough to make even McCree wary of being too close to him and his knives until he cooled off.)_

Now, however, McCree comes with a deal in mind--mutually beneficial, he’s sure. He opens the cell door and grabs his bucket again, tosses a mangled fish toward the corner; the mer flinches back from it with a sharp hiss, and McCree chuckles.

“What, bubbles?” he goads, leaning against the wall of the cell with a smirk. “You scared of a little fish?” 

He watches the mer bare his teeth, sniff at the carcass, and notes the wariness in those glittering dark eyes; without the full use of his hands, he has no choice but to lean down and grab the fish in both of his mitts, fumbling with it as he brings it to his mouth. He tears the head off with one strong pull, and glares at McCree as he swallows, licking a bit of blood from his lips.

McCree whistles.

“Hungry, ain’t’cha, big boy?” he murmurs, coming closer. Each thud of his boots has the mer curling in on himself a little more, as if he can sense the dark desires McCree has in mind. He shakes the bucket, listens to the wet noise of the carcasses sloshing around inside. “Well...I got more fish for ya. Enough to fill your belly, an’ then some. But I’d be a bad captain if I went around givin’ things out for free, don’t’cha think?”

The mer doesn’t answer--McCree doesn’t expect him to. He drops the bucket by the mer’s tail and reaches for his coat, pulling it back enough to expose a gleaming silver revolver strapped to his waist.

“This here’s Peacekeeper,” McCree drawls, giving the gun a fond pat before glancing up to meet the mer’s wide eyes. “And she’s gonna help me make sure that you pull your weight around here, fishie. You be good and you’ll never see her, and you’ll get fed and watered, hell, we might even let you swim around for a bit. But if you misbehave…”

He clucks his tongue and drops his coat again, lets the threat trail off into ominous silence as he comes forward again. When he’s close enough, he drops into a crouch by the mer’s side, and stares down those snarling lips and glossy fangs with a cool detachment. 

“There’s shows, in the city...people like seeing your kind,” McCree murmurs, thoughtful--this close, he can more easily appreciate the mer. He won’t call the creature beautiful, or handsome; but there is a kind of rugged charm to his strong-boned face, the wild and tangled, long curls of dark hair giving his face a feral kind of appeal that the strong muscles of his torso only accentuate. “You can make me a lot of money, mer...and in return, I won’t sell you off to a circus, or kill you and sell your hide.” McCree grins faintly. “That sounds ‘bout fair, don’t it?”

The mer doesn’t respond, just stares at him with eyes endless and dark and horrified--but there’s defeat there, a dawning understanding, and that’s victory, answer enough. McCree pats the heaving black flank and gets to his feet, and--in a rush of mercy--kicks over the bucket as he passes it, spilling half-carved fish and slimy guts across the floor of the cell.

Upstairs, he passes Murphy, and sees the gleam in the man’s eye; the bite on his arm is healing nicely, but he wants revenge. McCree is nothing if not a considerate captain.

“Tomorrow,” he tells the cook, as he heads to his quarters. “You’ll get your pound of flesh, Murf. And we’ll make him pretty, for all the city-folk to stare at, and make some money off him.”

That night as he lays in bed, McCree’s dreams are pleasant--full of gleaming silver and glistening slick, cascading piles of shiny coin. He wakes with his dick hard and straining, and decides to go down to the brig to visit his favorite mer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all art credited to ravenouscannibal.tumblr.com <3

In his dreams, Gabriel is free.

In his dreams he swims--through the skeletal ruins of wrecked ships that he calls home, darting in and out of the weak beams of sunlight, kicking up sand along the sea floor that swirls aimlessly through dark waters. Here there is no hard dry board beneath his body, no leather around his hands, no cell bars; here there is his lovely mate, all shimmering blue scales and dark racing stripes, silver hair that waves weightless in the water, skin lightly sunkissed from his time above the waves and scored with scars to match Gabriel’s own.

In his dreams, they are together; his body twined with one sleeker, longer, as they race point-to-point through the sea. It’s a competition that he knows he will lose, ultimately--his body is designed for warmth and strength in the deep-cold waters, not for speed in the shallows--but he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, because at the end of their race he can fall into his mate’s strong arms and press open-mouthed kisses against his face, look into those endless blue eyes to happily sigh, _“Jack…”_

And there, his dreams stop.

Nightmares replace them--a race in unknown waters, Jack rushing ahead in a streak of blue, lines of rope buried in the sand. They tangle together at the finish, sink down to the sea floor in a twined mess of bodies and teasing touches, Jack’s fingers carding lovingly through Gabriel’s long hair with an adoring sigh. When they settle to rest it’s Gabriel’s weight that sets off the trap, the ropes closing in on them like mighty jaws; and then it’s a blur, full of their thrashing and Jack’s frightened cry, ribbons of crimson curling through the water as the delicate blue spines along his forearms are caught by the ropes and ripped free, time and time again. Gabriel tries to focus--tries to plan, strategize, find a way to break free--but the surface is drawing nearer and Jack is trilling his panic on a frequency that breaks Gabriel’s heart, and as the top of the net starts to break into open air he finally comes up with an idea.

He sets his teeth to the coarse rope, chews and gnaws and tears with his talons where he can, trying to rip them to safety. It’s painful work, the quick grind hard and unnatural on his jaws; he bites his lips, his tongue, more than once in his haste, but as more and more pieces of rope are untangled, worked free to sink to the ocean floor, the pain matters less and less. 

_“Go!”_ he finally shouts, when the top curve of his back is breaching the water’s surface, and he has a small hole in front of him; he grabs for Jack as he writhes, tries to shove him head-first through the break in the net, and is relieved only when the end of his dark blue tail slithers out to freedom. Immediately Jack turns for him, reaching for the net with clasping fingers, eyes wide and desperate as he begs, “Gabe-- _Gabe!_ Come on!”

Gabriel tries--lunges through until he’s stuck, his upper half free but still too trapped, his bulkier form caught fast in the snug grip of the rope--and he writhes as he’s pulled into the air, thrashing and splashing fitfully, fighting even though he knows it’s too late. His last glimpse of Jack is the heartbreak, the horror on his face as he floats inches below the water’s surface, the tears that glitter fleetingly like sea glass in his eyes; and Gabriel mouths to him, _“Go, before they get you, too.”_

In the nightmare, the memory, he’s dumped onto a hard, wet deck, and there is where he stays.

When he wakes, it’s to the sound of thudding boots, men coming down the stairs and toward his cell. The blue--of Jack’s bright eyes, of the beckoning sea he calls home--is gone, replaced by the greys and browns of his captivity. He shifts restlessly in the pile of damp rags that has become his comfort zone, the closest thing to the much-needed water that he has, and tries to find a position where they can cool his dehydrated, feverish body; the cloth scratches over his drying-out scales as he moves, too coarse to really bring much comfort, but he shudders at the thought of having nothing, of being left on the hard ground to dry out and burn up from the inside out, have his scales fall off one by one and leave him raw.

McCree stands in front of his cell, arms crossed while the burly man Gabriel had bitten yesterday--Murphy, he remembers the crew yelling the name as they pulled the man away from him, untangled their bodies--unlocks the door. Immediately Gabriel draws back with a snarl, bares his teeth to the cook--licks over his fangs to remind the man that just hours ago they’d tasted and taken his flesh, and could do so again, with ease.

“Ah, ah. We had a deal, bubbles.” McCree’s voice cuts through the tension in the room easily, and draws Gabriel’s gaze. He pulls back his jacket, just enough to let Peacekeeper gleam--and Gabriel hisses, but lets his lips fall back over his fangs, drops his glare sullenly to the floor as Murphy comes closer. The man’s thick rubber boots come into his line of sight, and Murphy crouches, sets a heavy hand on Gabriel’s wild hair like he can’t hear, doesn’t care about, the growl that still rumbles low in his chest.

“You remember me, don’t you, beast?” Murphy sneers, his hand tightening in a sudden fist; and it’s more than Gabriel can take, outside of his control as he whips around, mitted hands flying up to grab at the cook’s arm, trying to wrestle him down to fasten his teeth in that yielding throat--

The crack of a gunshot, blinding pain along his lower half, halts him. Gabriel lets out a strangled yowl and falls to the floor, rolling onto his back to writhe in agony, stare down at himself with wide, watering eyes--the end of his tail is missing a clean circle of flesh, bleeding dark and sluggish down his scales, throbbing in time to the beat of his racing heart. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe through the pain, gills flaring out in a desperate, useless attempt to assist his lungs in getting enough oxygen into his rattled body.

“I warned you.” McCree’s voice isn’t unkind--but satisfied, almost. Pleased with Gabriel’s disobedience; or, more accurately, with getting to punish him for it. He loads another shell into Peacekeeper with all of the unhurried arrogance of someone entirely in charge, and continues, “Next time, I’ll hit something more important than your tail. This is your last warning.”

Gabriel shudders under the threat--doesn’t resist Murphy’s hands this time, as they grab at his hair and hold him down. One hand comes to his chin, grabbing and pressing along his jaws to spring them open, and Gabriel hisses weakly as a thick leather belt is cinched tight between them, holding his mouth open and rendering him unable to bite. More men file in, crewmates helping to pin Gabriel to the floor and keep him still, held fast under their body weight as he writhes fitfully.

The file comes first, accompanied by Murphy’s dark chuckle of, “We’ll see how mean you are, when I’m done with ya.” Thick fingers that taste of bitter residue grab at his lips and his jaws, pry around and hold his mouth open even more so the cook can work the file in the space between; the grating is but another blow to his damaged teeth, sore already from their misuse against the ropes, and the vibration of the file against them rattles all the way to the base of Gabriel’s skull, lights up his mouth with a kind of static that he can taste, shocking and metallic against his tongue. 

The hands holding him shift, and Murphy moves the file, continues his work on the other side of Gabriel’s mouth; and the _vibration_ , jarring his teeth in their sockets and making him wince against the throbbing that builds up in his head, everything overwhelming Gabriel’s senses and filling him with such a sense of utter unnatural wrongness that it twists his gut, adds to the nausea the headache brings about, roiling and low in his belly. The shavings of his teeth litter across his tongue like coarse sand and he tries to revolt against it, squirming in the chokehold around his throat, but it’s only when all of his teeth have been blunted that the arms locked around his head retreat. He’s left to roll onto his belly and cough up the paste that the filings have turned into, thick and tacky against his sore tongue like glue, catching on the belt that still holds his aching jaws apart. 

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” McCree calls, amused and grinning where he leans against the open door; Gabriel blinks away the water gathering in his eyes to glare up at him, but his indignant hiss changes to a cut-off yowl as a hand grabs a fistful of his thick hair and jerks backward, pulling him up. Spine curved backward and head pulled back, Gabriel can just see the scissors looming over his face, and screws his eyes shut tight as they set to work on his hair.

It hurts more than he thought it would--and not in the physical way that he can grit his teeth against, but in a way that claws into his heart, settles in his belly like icy stones. Each soft snip, snip of the scissors has more long, dark hair falling to the floor, and Gabriel tries not to look at it, tries not to picture how he looks now and wonder, forlornly, _What would Jack think?_

It’s easier, less painful, to not dwell on the answer.

Instead Gabriel focuses on what he knows, what he can feel. There’s more calloused fingers at his ear, pulling out the polished abalone shell piercings--a gift from Jack on their second anniversary, and Gabriel can’t stand to think about how tenderly Jack had placed them in, the gentleness in his touch as he’d tucked Gabriel’s hair behind his ear with a whisper of, _“Beautiful.”_

A small red tag is held in front of his face, made of bright plastic with 08 stamped on it in black ink, and the voice overhead is nameless but cruel as it taunts, “We usually save these for our prize catches--but you’ll do.”

The thick post forces into his ear, locks shut with a click, and he hisses at the pain, tries to shake his head free--he’s rewarded by a strong forearm locking around his throat from behind, a broad hand at the base of his skull to hold him still. The razor chirrs noisily and pulls at his skin as it swipes quick and careless over his head, trimming away the short-cropped hair to nothing more than a fine buzz; and just when he thinks they’re done, another hand slaps across his forehead, and the razor moves down to the bristles of his goatee, working across his lips and jaws until he’s sore, bleeding, shaved clean. The hands turn him loose in a brisk shove, and he falls to the floor gracelessly, reeling from the assault and lightheaded, aching, disoriented.

He just wants to go home--back to the cool waters he knows, back to Jack’s bright eyes and dazzling smile, back to hours spent doing nothing but holding hands and drifting on the current, wherever it felt like taking them...

“There...he looks less like a savage already, don’t he?” McCree’s voice draws him back to reality, and he glances up to see him finally shoving off the cell door to slowly come closer. Something jingles with every step he takes, and when Gabriel drags his tired gaze up to look, his heart sinks like a stone.

It’s a collar--thick and black, studded with bronze, but Gabriel can’t take his eyes off the big, brassy bell that hangs from it, chiming noisily with McCree’s steps. He forces himself upright again, baring his blunted teeth weakly; but then there’s a flash of silver and the cold muzzle of Peacekeeper is against his forehead, digging in hard enough to hurt.

“Don’t test me, fishie,” McCree says, his voice soft, barely above a whisper--and still loud enough for Gabriel to hang onto every word. He stares down the gun and thinks of Jack, and of finding a way back to the clear waters they called home, of rushing into his arms; then swallows down the protest and closes his eyes, and tries to ignore how bitter defeat tastes on the back of his tongue.

McCree coos approvingly, tucking his revolver away and buckling the collar on. It sits snug against Gabriel’s throat, a foreign weight that he immediately hates, almost as much as he hates McCree’s little, “Good boy”, and the pat of his hand across Gabriel’s shorn scalp. “Gonna make us lots of good money, bubbles. Hell, you might even enjoy it, a time or two.”

Gabriel doesn’t want to think about what that could mean--doesn’t have the energy or the will to. But he opens his eyes again when he hears McCree drop down to his knees beside him, and finds himself helplessly pinned under that sharklike grin, the dim light gleaming off McCree’s golden canine.

“But before we do that,” he drawls, reaching for the belt around his trousers with purpose, intent enough to make Gabriel’s heart sink, “I think we need to sample the goods.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all art credited to ravenouscannibal.tumblr.com <3

Gabriel has felt pain before.

The scars along his skin and the notch in his tail are testament enough to the things he’s endured, from hungry sharks wanting a meal to hunters’ harpoons wanting a trophy, to the fangs of his own kind. He’s been in fights and he’s lost a few, enough to know his tolerance for pain and how much he can take, know with a familiar kind of intimacy the way agony sings along his nerves.

But this--this is something he’s never felt the likes of.

Down on his back on the hard floor of the deck, Gabriel can only writhe under the weight that holds him, buck up against the hand wrapped tight around his throat. He aches in every part of his being, every muscle feeling torn and ripped clean from bone, but the worst of his pain is lower--a white-hot ache in his cloaca that throbs with every beat of his heart, pulsing agony through the rest of his body like bits of broken glass through his veins. He doesn’t know how many times he’s been used like this--lost count, in the delirium after the first time they crammed two men into his hole at once--but he can feel the wreckage his body has become, the cum and spit and sweat dried over his scales, clumped in his eyelashes, clogging his gills.

And still they keep going.

“His cunt’s all loose now,” Murphy grunts, his hands braced on Gabriel’s hips and knees spread around the bulk of Gabriel’s tail, so he can more easily drop his weight into each of the heavy, slow thrusts into Gabriel’s cloaca. Gabriel jerks under each one, the breath driven from his lungs with the force behind the fucking, and his hands clench and unclench inside their mitts, pinned to the floor by another sailor’s knees. “How am I supposed to get off in this sloppy hole?”

“The same way the others did,” McCree says mildly, from where he leans against the wall and oversees the assault--when Gabriel looks over at him, he’s disgusted by the captain’s lazy rubbing of the tent in his loose breeches, how he idly pleasures himself while watching Gabriel’s debasement.

Gabriel bares his blunted teeth and tries to growl; and arches with a yelp instead, as two of Murphy’s thick fingers worm their way into his cloaca alongside the man’s twitching dick. They stretch, splitting him open even wider, forcing his slick rim to accommodate, and his cry of pain is overwhelmed by Murphy’s moan.

“That’s it,” he breathes, curling his fingers upward inside Gabriel and pumping his hips faster, humping over his body in a blind chase for orgasm. “That’s it, you little fuckin’ whore, take it, fuck--”

Gabriel’s sure the cruel cook would delight in him writhing under his orgasm, screaming about how his release has him burning up inside; but truth remains that the only way he knows Murphy has cum is when he doubles over Gabriel’s body, his hips stuttering to a stop before grinding in deep, working the cum around Gabriel’s hole into a frothy mess of white. He pulls out with a satisfied sigh, and Gabriel jerks his gaze up to the ceiling, stares hard and bites at the gag between his teeth so he doesn’t have to look down, doesn’t have to see the sticky trails of spend that crawl in lazy rivulets down his body.

“You want a turn with ‘im, Captain?” he hears Murphy ask, and the answering chuckle has his belly doing backflips.

“Sure do. Just wanted him to get good and messy first.” McCree’s voice is low, dark; a promise of malice that makes Gabriel screw his eyes shut tight. He thinks of the sea, of Jack’s endless blue eyes, and tries to take his mind far away from this place of pain and humiliation.

McCree has other ideas.

“Got a surprise for you, guppy,” he says, dropping down to a kneel by Gabriel’s left side and running a hand up the base of his tail, smoothing it out along his flank; Gabriel shudders at the touch, unsettlingly tender after the brutalization his body has already endured. He chews at the gag as McCree’s fingers skirt over the puffy rim of his cloaca, rubbing the slick and the cum into Gabriel’s scales, and can’t help the hissing whine that leaves him when a single finger dips in.

“Look at how loose your li’l cunt is,” McCree comments, slowly working his finger in and out, each slow pull smearing more wetness along Gabriel’s abused flesh and soothing the ache there, however momentarily--it’s unnerving, a kind of light, tickling pleasure he’s never felt before, something that Jack’s talons could never achieve no matter how gentle their wielder. Gabriel knows he doesn’t want it, knows he wants nothing more than to rip McCree’s arm from its socket and dive back into the safety of the water; yet still he finds his breath getting heavy, his tail twitching every time McCree’s finger curls inside him.

One press of a fingertip hits something at the forefront of his insides, and Gabriel jerks sharply, a gasp ripped from him before he can help it. McCree grins at it and presses the spot again, watching with delight as Gabriel grits his teeth and throws his head back, writhes on the floor like he can’t decide if he wants to get away or move closer.

“Found your sweet spot, didn’t I?” He adds a second finger, and Gabriel keens at the feeling, at calloused fingertips prodding around inside his cloaca--like McCree won’t be happy until every part of him is violated. He can feel the cum being shifted around inside of him, and shudders at the feeling when McCree chuckles, “That’s right...enjoy it, bubbles.”

He doesn’t want to--but he can’t help it, can’t help the pleasure that rises up in tandem with his nausea, can’t help how it makes him tingle all the way down to the tip of his tail. He bites down on his moan when he feels another stretch, and looks down blearily to see four of McCree’s fingers stuffed into his hole, spreading him open and making wet, sucking noises with every thrust of McCree’s hand, loud enough to have Gabriel throwing his head back in mortified disgust.

He hates it, hates how McCree’s fingers feel working him open, stretching his abused rim wider and prodding at his slick insides in a beckoning motion; but he hates even more the pleasure it brings, of a caliber that he’s never felt before, like a tide building up at the base of his belly. Like a coil winding tighter and tighter until it has to snap, and Gabriel keens behind his gag, working his blunted teeth against the cloth in an effort to release some of the tension--

It’s a simple movement--McCree’s thumb rubbing insistently at the apex of Gabriel’s cloaca, against the hidden bundle of nerves tucked away there, while his four fingers slide in deep--and it’s so shockingly intense, so painfully intimate, that it tears the orgasm from him and has Gabriel seeing white. His body clenches up as every muscle he has tightens, arms drawing up at his sides; and the pressure in his core is released in one spurting liquid move, his shoulders trembling as he watches through half-lidded eyes the spray of watery slick that squirts from his hole, arcing in the air and covering McCree’s retreating arm in a glossy, wet sheen.

“There, now,” McCree murmurs, grinning as he wipes his forearm on the thigh of his pants; Gabriel lets his eyes close, too weary and humiliated to meet the human’s gaze, wanting nothing more than to sink down into the floor and disappear. “That was good, wasn’t it, guppy? Made you cum real hard. Told you you’d like it.”

Gabriel can feel it, when the captain straddles his chest and drops down, sitting on him with his knees on the floor to cage Gabriel in. Then there’s a hand grabbing at his collar, jerking him forward, and he opens his eyes to see it--McCree’s thighs spread wide and his dick jutting up thick and hard between them, foreskin already pulled back enough to show a gleam of the slick-shiny, flushed tip. Gabriel wants to recoil from it, but between McCree’s weight on his torso and the exhaustion that clings to his bones, all he can manage to do is glare up at the human balefully.

“Don’t give me that look,” McCree chides, reaching around Gabriel’s head to undo the gag--Gabriel works his mouth as soon as it’s gone, moving his aching jaw and running his tongue along his blunted teeth, and pulls his lips back in a weak snarl when McCree pats his smooth-shaven cheek. “I made you feel good, right? ‘S only fair you return the favour. And if you start thinkin’ about being naughty...”

He rolls his hips forward to show off the gleam of Peacekeeper again, and the wound in Gabriel’s tail gives a sudden throb. He scowls, gaze dropping to the floor; to the thick mitts wrapped around his hands, rendering his talons useless.

In the end, he has no choice.

One of McCree’s big hands grabs the back of his head, and pulls him forward. He parts his lips for the man’s cock and feels it slide between his ruined teeth, over his aching tongue--an alien intrusion, yet another intimacy that he’s never experienced with Jack. If McCree minds his inexperience, he doesn’t say so; just bucks his hips ever-forward, fingernails digging into Gabriel’s scalp to hold him still as his throat is forced to yield to the human’s stiff shaft. He feels tears prick at his eyes, and squeezes them shut tightly in response so that he won’t have to see the way McCree sneers down at him.

The biggest problem with shutting his eyes is that it makes all his other senses more acute. He can taste the salt of McCree’s sweat on his cock as it’s pistoned between his lips, and with his sensitive nose buried in coarse dark curls the sour scent of the human’s unwashed body is nearly enough to have him gagging. The only comfort he can draw upon is that it ultimately isn’t a lot of work, for his taxed body--all he has to do is stay upright and keep his mouth open, and McCree can fuck into it with his rapid, punishing thrusts, and Gabriel can curl his hands into fists and feel his talons bite into his own skin and try to hang on.

When the human finally cums, it’s a relief--a sour-salty burst across the back of Gabriel’s tongue, McCree’s fingers digging harder into his scalp, a final buck of his hips before he slowly pulls his cock free. Gabriel sags when it’s gone, his mouth hanging open as he pants for breath, and is too tired to manage anything more than a hoarse hiss as McCree wipes his spit-soaked shaft along Gabriel’s smooth cheek to clean it.

“There you go,” he coos, letting Gabriel’s head go and standing up to tuck himself back into his pants. He smirks down at Gabriel, something satisfied in his voice as he says, “Thanks for the help, bubbles. And thanks for the new bling, too.”

He turns his head, touches at his ear; blinking blearily to clear the tears from his vision, Gabriel can just make out the gleam of polished abalone shell, tucked into McCree’s ear. He wants to fight, wants to surge upright and tackle the thieving human, tear his throat out, blunted teeth or no--

Instead, he feels McCree’s boot kick at him, a solid blow to the center of his chest that knocks him flat on his back and leaves him gasping. By the time he’s recovered enough to roll onto his front again, the cell door is being locked; and the last thing he sees is the swish of McCree’s tailored coat, as he heads back upstairs.


	4. Chapter 4

_In the distance, a ship is burning._

_Perched atop one of the large rocks dotting the shallow reef, Gabriel watches the flickering flame with a kind of morbid curiosity--he wonders how many unfortunate sailors have died, this time. It’s only the third such tragedy he’s seen in his young life--he spends most of his time in the deep water, and is more used to seeing the corpses of the ships than watching them die--and yet each one makes him sadder than the last. He can’t help but think all of it unnecessary; a waste of life, of resources, and a burden to the sea, as the carcass of the ruined ship starts to sink below the waves, doomed to rest forever upon the ocean floor._

_Gabriel sighs, pushing himself up off his belly and peering in the distance to more closely witness the last of the wreck. He wonders if there are any survivors--could swim closer and see, bring any living human back to the shore, cut down on the deathcount of the day…_

_“Gabe?”_

_He startles at the voice, turns to glance over his shoulder--and relaxes again at the sight of Jack, sunlight shimmering off his bright blue scales and clinging to his pale skin, making his hair gleam like polished gold. He holds a fish pinned to the rock by one of his indigo-mottled hands, and tilts his head at Gabriel, his easy smile slowly shifting into something suspicious. “...what were you doing?”_

_“Nothing,” Gabriel says, leaning back to snatch the fish out from under Jack’s hand with a coy grin and splashing his mate as he does; it’s enough to wash the dubious look right off Jack’s face, and the last thing Gabriel sees before he dives below the waves is the glint of Jack’s teeth in his grin._

_Underwater, the tragedy above is easier to forget. Gabriel tears into the fish with a hungry growl--he’s never been very good at hunting in the shallows; these waters are much more Jack’s speciality--and is licking the remaining bones clean when he sees a flash of blue tail in front of his face. Before he can react, he feels the pleasant coolness of Jack’s body pressed up snug against his back, Jack’s arms locking around his waist. When the initial shock fades it’s easy to relax against him, let their tails twine together as they drift lazily through the water._

_“...I know what you were thinking, by the way,” Jack says, breaking their comfortable silence and nosing at Gabriel’s cheek. “Up on the surface. You were staring at that shipwreck, and I know--”_

_“Jack, what if one of them was still alive?” Gabriel looks over his shoulder, into those bright blue eyes he’s come to love; and Jack looks away, clearly uncomfortable with the question. Gabriel frowns, presses on insistently, “If one of them was alive, and we just ignored it...they can’t live out here, all we’d have to do is take them to the shore--”_

_“It’s too dangerous, Gabriel,” Jack says, shaking his head and clutching Gabriel’s waist tighter, like just the thought will have him swimming away into peril. “The humans don’t care about us. My dad says they hunt mers, skin us alive and sell the pieces--”_

_“Your dad also said that we’re too different to ever last,” Gabriel says, wriggling out of Jack’s arms. With a single beat of his tail he’s propelled himself upside down, and peers down at Jack with one brow quirked. He reaches down to touch the polished shell pierced into Jack’s ear, and turns his head enough to let its twin, settled in his own ear, catch the light. “Two years later, here we are.”_

_As he gazes up at his mate’s face Jack’s own expression softens, but his frown lingers. He grabs Gabriel’s hand and twines their fingers together, pulls them to his lips to brush a kiss across Gabriel’s knuckles. “That’s different, though. If the humans got you, if I lost you, I don’t know what I’d do…”_

_Gabriel opens his mouth, a reply on his tongue; and it never comes out, because at that moment a loud splash echoes through the water. Gabriel whips around, zeroing in on the noise--it’s not as weak as the floundering of a wounded fish, not the sound of prey, but definitely made by something large, at least his size or even bigger._

_And it’s coming from the direction of the burning ship._

_Gabriel glances back to Jack, and sees the revelation dawn on his face._

_“Gabe, wait--!”_

_But Gabriel is gone, shooting through the water in a black streak toward the source of the noise. He can hear Jack following--his shouts of “Gabe! Hang on!”--and only pushes forward, eyes locked onto the dark blob of his target._

_As he gets nearer, the blob changes; lengthens, into something gangly with four limbs, treading water in what has got to be the most frantic, useless technique that Gabriel has ever seen. He floats below it to watch, silent as a shadow, and puts a finger to his lips as Jack comes closer._

_“It’s a human,” Jack hisses, curling around Gabriel and grabbing at his wrist; Gabriel snorts, rolling his eyes and pulling his hand free to slowly swim up closer. “Gabe! Don’t!”_

_“It’s just a little human,” Gabriel points out, circling under it curiously--studying the frayed clothes clinging to the skinny body, the way it thrashes, like the water burns. “And look, Jack, it can’t even swim. We have to help it, or it’s gonna die.”_

_“Good riddance,” Jack snarls, his tail lashing. “The less of them there are in our waters, the safer we are. You don’t know what these things can do, Gabe! They’re killers!”_

_“Not this one.” Gabriel heads for the surface with a determined flick of his tail. “I’m gonna help it. I can’t just let it die.”_

_He breaks the surface of the water to meet the human’s face--they share a single, brief moment of staring, with Gabriel caught off-guard by the desperation in the human’s eyes, how visible its terror is, on its young face--and then, like it’s the last thing it could ever stand to see, the human goes limp in the water._

_Gabriel jerks into action to catch it before it slips under the surface, wincing as he feels his claws sink into the supple flesh of the human’s shoulder. He’s just managed to get the lanky body more carefully situated in his arms when Jack’s head breaks the surface too, a frown on his pretty face. His eyes are narrowed to slits._

_“What are you doing?”_

_Gabriel shifts the human’s body in his grip, grabbing onto its upper arms instead to pull its body through the water. He glances at Jack irritably. “ What does it look like I’m doing? I’m bringing it to shore. Did you want to help, or just complain?”_

_Jack scowls, but after a moment of sullen consideration swims over to Gabriel’s other side and takes one of the human’s arms. Together, it’s easy to tow it in--Gabriel has to wonder at the thing’s health, if it’d been eating enough. He dismisses the concern with a shake of his head, deeming it far too personal a thing to worry about, even for him._

_“There,” Jack huffs, once they’ve gotten the human back to the shore, stretched it out along the warm sand. Gabriel can see the cuts from his talons stretched across the human’s shoulder, and feels a sudden pang of guilt when he sees them bleeding. “We brought the ugly human in, and saved its life. Can we go now, before it wakes up and decides to kill us?”_

_“...I think he’s kinda handsome,” Gabriel says offhandedly, taking a moment to trail a finger down the human’s scruffy cheek, across the breadth of its chest; he can just barely feel the human’s heart, beating away under tanned flesh and scraps of curly dark hair. Alive._

_Behind him, Jack snorts. “No. Not really.”_

_A quiet splash and an off-put grumble tells Gabriel that Jack’s already leaving, and he smiles faintly, rolling his eyes at his mate’s petty jealousy. He pulls away from the human with a quiet, “Don’t listen to him”, and slips into the water again, leaving his good deed to rest on the shore._


	5. Chapter 5

The crew returns to him, four days later.

Gabriel’s startled from a restless sleep by a sharp banging noise--and he opens his eyes to see three of the crewmen gathered in front of him, with McCree overseeing where he stands in the narrow staircase. The crew sways on their feet as the ship moves gently along the waves, and the reek of alcohol coming off them burns Gabriel’s sensitive nose, makes him wrinkle his lips in distaste. 

One carries a bucket that smells of fish. Gabriel feels his stomach rumble, even before he hears it.

He can’t remember the last time he’d eaten--it has to have been days ago, back when a bucket half-filled with seawater was put in his cell. The bucket is now almost empty, and with a slow flick of his tail Gabriel sits upright in his nest of damp blankets, eyeing the crew members with a wary gaze.

“Look, guppy woke up,” one of the men says, his voice sing-song and merry. He waves the bucket forward, makes it clack noisily along the bars of Gabriel’s cage. “You hungry, little fishie? Huh?”

“Peters--don’t be cruel.” McCree lights a cigarillo and takes a drag; but despite his words, when he grins all Gabriel can think is _shark_. “Give the creature a bite to eat, would you?”

Peters nods briskly, and looks down to rummage in the bucket with a cheery, “Uh-huh, Cap’n.” After a few moments of rooting around he pulls out a small mackerel by the tail, and tosses it between the bars of Gabriel’s cage, grinning as the mer flinches back from the wet noise it makes upon impact.

It’s not fresh--Gabriel can smell the sickly-sweet scent of decay of it, faint but clinging to the corpse. Were he not half-starved, if he didn’t ache with hunger all the way down to his bones, then he would’ve passed it by; but as it is he doesn’t spare a second thought before lunging for it, grabbing it up between his fangs and gulping it down, mouthful by ravenous mouthful. 

McCree whistles lowly, shrugging off the wall and coming closer to the cell. “Hungry, ain’t’cha, bubbles?”

Gabriel snarls at him, and McCree laughs, flicking the ashes from his cigarillo into the bucket in Peters’ hand. “Well, if that ain’t just the rudest thing…and here I thought we were buildin’ ourselves a little friendship.” He leans forward, bracing his forearms on the bars of Gabriel’s cell and rolling the cigarillo between his teeth, his eyes glittery-bright with mischief. “Thought you wanted to be my buddy, guppy. Or, at the very least, wanted to eat.”

He reaches back into the bucket and pulls out another fish--it’s dull-scaled and soggy, flecked in ashes from McCree’s cigarillo, but Gabriel still can’t help his quiet little trill of want, the way his eyes fixate on it as McCree holds it in front of the cell bars.

“‘S what I thought,” he says, voice soft. “Now you be a good li’l guppy, and you’ll get your fill. Be nice and sweet, and my boys here’ll feed you till your belly’s full.” He waves the fish slowly, a lazy grin pulling across his face as he watches Gabriel’s eyes track it through the air. “You gonna do that for me?”

Gabriel hesitates--pretends that he has a choice, tries to tell himself he’s actually considering--and makes himself choke down the humiliation to nod his head. He drops his gaze to the floor to avoid seeing McCree’s smile, but hears it all the same in the man’s purr. 

“I knew you could be reasoned with, bubbles. You play nice, now.”


	6. Chapter 6

But as it turns out, playing nice is exhausting.

With the food sitting nearby working as strong leverage against him and McCree’s presence a solid weight looming over him, Gabriel is helpless to the wants of the crew--has to lay still and let them pull his snarling lips open, taste the grim as they run their fingers along his gums with inquisitive little coos. He’s never missed the sharp edges to his teeth more than when they force their cocks into his mouth, pistoning in quick, brutal motions that leave him choking; but the worst is when they find his cloaca again, tease him with soft, light slaps to the sensitive flesh just to watch him buck and hear his muffled hisses.

He can feel someone’s wet cockhead nudging at his hole, parting the folds easily--would look and see who it is, but can’t for the solid weight of a body sitting over his face, holding the hot and sweaty swell of someone’s balls over his nose and lips. His hands are busy, made to wrap around the cocks that his holes cannot satisfy and move in slow, unsteady motions; they jerk, as his whole body jerks, when the cock teasing at his slit is suddenly rammed in.

It hurts--far more than it usually does--has Gabriel arching off the floor of the cell and lashing his tail, unable to keep his noise in check as he cries out against the sweaty, humid space his face is pressed up against. Again the cock slams into him, and this time the man over his pelvis snarls in frustration, shifting to sit lower on Gabriel’s tail.

“Hey...boss,” he calls, and Gabriel can recognize Gulling’s voice from the taunts that would come during his first days of imprisonment, slurred as it is. “I think he’s doin’ somethin’ with his cunt…it’s all locked-up and shit. I can’t get it in.”

“Can’t get it in?” McCree repeats, and he sounds amused; Gabriel hates it, thrashes with a renewed vigor as he hears the captain’s boots come closer. “You sure that it’s a problem with his pussy, and ain’t just your whiskeydick?”

A chorus of guffaws answer him--Gabriel yelps as Gulling slaps a palm down on his tail in frustration. “Now listen here, you sons of bitches--!”

“Settle down, kid, I’m just playin’.” Gabriel goes still, barely daring to breathe, as the noise of McCree’s boots suddenly stop. The captain hums thoughtfully for a moment. “A’ight, boys, get off ‘im, let me check it out.” 

The mass of weight over his face is removed, as the man steadily smothering him stands up; and Gabriel sucks in a ragged breath, blinking the man’s musk out of his stinging eyes and finding himself face to face with McCree.

“Now bubbles, I thought we were past this,” McCree says, tucking his cigarillo into the corner of his mouth and squatting down over Gabriel’s tail. He runs his hand along the puffy, warm skin of Gabriel’s hole, tutting chidingly. “You can’t lock the boys out of your cunt. We made a deal, remember?”

Gabriel stares at him a moment longer, then jerks his head away, grinding what remains of his teeth; and the feel of McCree’s calloused fingertips nudging apart the folds of his cloaca has him hissing, his body going tense as he screws his eyes shut tight. 

Everything in him screams to get McCree away--every particle of his being rebelling against the idea of the human touching him any more. Gabriel’s tail lashes, thudding solidly against the captain’s ankle.

“Oh c’mon, quit bein’ a prude and lemme see.” Ignoring the signs of Gabriel’s distress, McCree leans closer to jam his fingers past the abused rim of Gabriel’s hole with a lopsided grin. “Ain’t like everyone here’s not seen your fucked-out cunt anyway--”

His fingers brush up against something firm and smooth tucked up inside Gabriel, and it’s like sending an electric jolt through the mer’s body--he lashes out on instinct, a snarl bubbling past his lips, his fangs bared. His talons catch on Jesse’s face, send him toppling backward with a startled shout; and with the threat removed, the fingers free of his body, Gabriel huddles up closer to the wall and stares at the downed captain, his tail flicking anxiously.

A hush settles over the gathered pirates. Gabriel hugs his belly with both arms and has half a mind to apologize.

When McCree looks up, he’s covering his right eye with his hand. There’s blood, smeared beneath his palm; it runs down his cheek in streaks, like grisly crimson tears. Above his fingers are three ragged cuts from Gabriel’s talons carved into his skin, and any triumph Gabriel would have felt at seeing the inflicted wound is lost under the fear that McCree’s stone-cold gaze fills him with.

He’s never been more certain, in all his life, that he’s going to die.

“Bad move, little fishie,” McCree growls. He straightens up, slowly, pulls his bloody hand away to snap at his crew. “Hold him down. Now.”

The pirates jump into action, and Gabriel’s protests are useless--just trilling cries of distress that echo around the brig as he’s held down by each limb, pinned to the unforgiving floor. McCree advances on him slowly, like a predator stalking helplessly prey, and when he pulls Peacekeeper from her holster he’s close enough for Gabriel to hear the hammer cock.

McCree drops down into a crouch, and presses the gun’s muzzle in the hollow of Gabriel’s throat with enough force to bruise. 

“Open your mouth.”

Gabriel thinks of Jack--of hours spent lounging on sun-warmed rocks with their tails intertwined, of his mate’s beautiful smile and eyes so bright they put the shining ocean to shame--and it’s the desire to see him again, the desperation to feel his mate’s scales under his fingers one more time, that slowly makes his mouth fall open.

He’s expecting it, but that still doesn’t make it any easier to handle when Peacekeeper is crammed past his lips, pinning his tongue to the bottom of his mouth and overwhelming his senses with the bitter taste of polish and oil. He screws his eyes shut against the sour, offensive flavour and tries to keep still when McCree’s fingers return to his cloaca, rudely jamming past the wet folds of flesh and making him stretch until his wrist is buried inside.

McCree’s fingers move, searching, and Gabriel bucks sharply as he feels that same jolt rush through him, an electric shock up his spine--he throws his head back with a cry that’s muffled around the revolver’s barrel, and doesn’t have to look to see McCree’s victorious face when he crows, “Aha! Got somethin’ up in you, little fish, don’t’cha?”

His dirty nails scrape along Gabriel’s insides, and this time his eyes snap down, unsurprised but still horrified by the blood that steadily trickles past McCree’s lips. The captain’s hand moves, pulling backward, and Gabriel finds himself staring just as much as the rest of the crew as something shimmering, round, and pearlescent is pulled from inside him.

“It’s an egg,” McCree breathes, and Gabriel feels his heart shatter.

It can’t be--he’d tried, with Jack, time after time; and after every barren result he’d always chalked it up to his own body being deficient, to yet another bout of bad luck. They’d tried to start a family countless times and never could, yet here McCree is, pulling out another egg to lie beside the first in a shallow pool of slick fluid and making it impossible for Gabriel to look away, to deny what he’s seeing.

It’s only when the shape of the eggs blur into one blob of pastel color that he realizes he’s crying.

“Jesus, how many of these things you got in you, bubbles?” McCree snickers, his arm buried in almost up to the elbow as he roots around inside Gabriel. He pulls the fourth egg free with a wet pop and sets it down, then hands over the grip of Peacekeeper to the pirate keeping Gabriel’s arm held down, and uses his thumbs to spread the lips of Gabriel’s hole open, peering inside at where he’s wet and twitching. “I think that’s all of ‘em...for now.”

He sits back on his heels, mindless to how Gabriel weakly sobs against the floor, and grabs one egg up. He uses the bottom of his shirt to wipe the fluid away, revealing a shell that shines dully with pearlescent color, ever-changing as it’s moved beneath the light.

“These are real pretty, guppy,” McCree murmurs, before he smashes the egg down against the floor.

Gabriel wails at the sound, shaking his head and trying to curl in on himself, choking as the gun is forced deeper into his mouth; and in his distress he misses the way McCree pokes a finger through the egg’s contents, dragging empty, thin yolk across the planks. 

“Oh, stop your caterwaulin’’,” he grumbles, rubbing his slimy hand over Gabriel’s tail to clean off the worst of the fluid. “They’re duds, dipshit. You ain’t gonna be havin’ any babies just yet.”

He grins and pats Gabriel’s cheek with the same hand, leaving bits of eggshell and yolk across his cheek. “But they will go for a pretty penny, don’t you think?”

McCree chuckles at Gabriel’s wide-eyed, horrified gaze, and pulls Peacekeeper from his slack mouth with little care. He holsters his gun with a flourish as he turns away.

“Get him tied up again, and let him have something to eat,” McCree orders, gathering up the remaining three eggs in his arms. “We’re gonna have to up his portions, now that he’s a full-fledged baby maker. We’ll sail to port and see just how much these little things’ll go for.”

He stops in the stairway to face Gabriel, and bows to him with a wide sweep of his hat.

“Pleasure doin’ business with you, guppy,” he murmurs, and turns away to the sound of the mer’s tortured scream.


	7. Chapter 7

_“It’s alright, sweetheart,” Jack murmurs against the shell of Gabriel’s ear, curling up a little tighter where they lie in the sun-warmed sand of the shallows. “This doesn’t have to be the end. We can keep trying.”_

_And Gabriel knows he’s right, knows that there are a million and one reasons why something like this could end up not working, knows it doesn’t mean he’s done anything wrong; and yet as he stares down at the small cluster of eggs gathered before him in the sand--perfect, round little things with a soft pearlescent sheen, beautiful and entirely devoid of life--he can’t help but feel like he’s failed, somehow._

_“This is our third time,” Gabriel whispers, like he needs to remind Jack, like they don’t both feel the pain of every lost clutch every day; and Jack’s response is a quiet hum in his ear, the tightening of his arms around Gabriel’s waist, like he’s trying to shield him from the demons and insecurities in his own head._

_“I know, Gabi. But it’s not your fault.” Jack presses a kiss to the messy locks of Gabriel’s hair and cradles him closer, scratching lightly along his dorsal fin. “It’s not your fault.”_

_Gabriel closes his eyes and clings to the words as tightly as Jack clings to him; tells himself that Jack is right, that they have years to make their visions of a family come true, and that there’s no need to be in such a rush. They can have babies and the family later; for now, they should focus on each other, on their own happiness._

_“I love you,” Jack tells him, and Gabriel opens his eyes--_

And finds himself right back in the nightmare that he’d been dreaming up an escape from.

The boat had stopped at port in the early hours of dawn--when the crew had pulled Gabriel off the ship with a rope around his tail and wrists, the sun was just starting to peek out over the horizon, pale color bleeding through the sky--and now, judging by the way it beats down upon him now and sears the scales along his back, he thinks it to be at least midday.

And he feels every minute, how each passing hour has taken its toll upon his body.

They put him in a wooden crate lined with tar, too tall for him to get out of but barely big enough for him to turn around in; and they put the crate inland, right by the stall that McCree kept at this port for whenever he brought in special items to sell. Gabriel had spent all day in the crate with his wrists tied behind his back and a gag between his teeth, forced to stare up at his eggs for sale on the stall counter, helpless against the curious hands that reached into the water to pet at him--and now as McCree approaches his tank, a sway in his step and a grin on his face, he can only hope that his torment is at least coming close to an end.

“How you doin’ in there, bubbles?” McCree asks, leaning against the crate and reaching inside to ruffle Gabriel’s hair, ignoring how his lips pull back in a silent snarl. “Gotta say, you’ve made us a good deal of money today. I’m proud of you.”

He grabs a small leather pouch off his waist and gives it a few shakes over the water; and even from inside his crate, Gabriel can hear the tell-tale clink of coin within. “You’ll be happy to know that those dead eggs of yours sold out in an hour--I’ll have to price ‘em for more, next time. The people ‘round here seem to like ‘em a lot...and to think, all I need to do to get more is to let my boys wreck your freaky little cunt--”

“Excuse me, Mr. McCree.”

Jesse whips around, and from behind his bulk Gabriel cannot see who he’s talking to--but he can hear the conversation, the other person’s voice like a low, silky purr, dark with the promise of something sinister.

“Can I help you?” Jesse asks, not unkindly, leaning back against the crate on his elbows. “I was just gettin’ ready to pack up and hit the water again.”

“Yes, actually. I came by earlier to look at your...specimen, but the venue was a bit overcrowded for my tastes. Now that the masses are cleared, I have a special favour to ask; and of course, the coin to sway you, should you be willing.”

“He’s not for sale.”

“I don’t want to buy him--well. Not all of him, anyway. Not forever. What I’m asking for is more of a renting option, if you will.”

Jesse clicks his tongue. “I’m listening.”

“I am a collector of such oddities of the sea; I have a mer of my own, too, although he must be a different species. I like to study them, and find out just exactly how they work inside.”

“So...what exactly do you want?”

“I want to borrow your specimen for a day, to conduct a few tests on him. You and your crew are more than welcome to enjoy a hotel room on my coin--consider it a brief vacation. When I’m done I will return him to you no worse for wear.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jesse mutters, scratching at his beard. “You’re askin’ an awful lot…”

“Name your price, pirate.”

“Two grand. You get him for twenty-four hours, and have to lug him back and forth by yourself.” He pauses, then adds, “And I’ll take a suite.”

“Done.” 

There’s only a moment of quiet, with the other person’s voice replaced instead by the noisy clink of coin being transferred; Gabriel watches McCree move forward, completely out of his line of sight. He stares up through the water, chewing fitfully at his gag and squirming uncomfortably in his crate, trying to position himself to see better--and he jerks back, startled, when a lean, narrow face, topped with slicked-back orange hair and wearing a thin-lipped smile, suddenly looms over the water.

“Hello, pet,” Moira says, her smile widening, breaking out into a grin that shows her teeth. “Are you ready to have some fun?”


	8. Chapter 8

Gabriel never thought there would be a time when he would wish for the relative safety and comfort of the pirate ship--and yet here he is, stretched out and tied down on a metal table with his gills flaring, his body laid bare and vulnerable for whatever Moira decides to do to him, and all he can hope for is that Jesse will come find him soon.

Given his recent luck, he’s not very hopeful.

“You are simply fascinating,” Moira murmurs, as she uses a pair of tweezers to pluck one shimmering black scale off Gabriel’s flank; she sets it in a shallow box by Gabriel’s head, joining the three other scales and two vials of blood, the capped swabs from his mouth and nose and a handful of hairs plucked from his scalp and beard. “So interesting...there are so many things to be discovered about you, so many mysteries to unlock…”

She trails off with a hum as she grabs a scalpel from the small table littered with tools behind her, and Gabriel yelps as he feels the bite of the blade cutting a neat square of flesh out of his tail. He knows it’s a superficial wound, knows it will heal with no lasting effect on his well-being, but still can’t shake the fear that strikes into him at how easily Moira mutilates him.

He finds himself wondering just what else she wants to do to him, and has to swallow down the bitter panic that rises in his throat. It would do no good to get worked up about it now, as helpless as he is; right now, his only option is to be still and endure, and hope that soon she will become bored of him.

But soon does not come soon enough.

Moira’s hands search over every inch of his body--prying his jaws open to pull out his tongue and shine a light down his throat, spreading his fingers and clipping his nails, running her palms down his front to feel the outline of his bones--and when she reaches his cloaca, she parts the lips with a coo before pressing a speculum into him and winding it open. Gabriel can only grit his teeth at the painful stretch, determined to not give this witch the satisfaction of his cries; but despite his best attempts, the first scrape of her cold metal tool along the inner walls of his pussy has him yelping.

“Shh,” she says, not even bothering to look up, entirely focused on where she scrapes more flesh from inside Gabriel’s hole. “I’m almost finished.”

And it’s that statement that Gabriel clings to, despite knowing it could very well be false--it’s the only hope he’s been given, since he first was dragged up onto land. He closes his eyes and endures the last of the scraping, the last of the calloused touches to his most sensitive parts, and the feel of the speculum quickly leaving him is almost enough to finally make the tears in his eyes fall.

But he makes himself hang on. He has promised to himself that he will not let the humans see him in pain any more, and even though he is certain he will fail, it’s a failure he wants to put off as long as he can. 

So he’s quiet when Moira tugs the table he’s tied to over to the next room, and only opens his eyes when he feels the buckles holding him down being unfastened; he blinks a few times to let his eyes adjust to the dimness of the room, and finds himself staring over at a huge tank of water, well over fifteen feet tall and long enough to wrap around the entire spacious room.  
“In you go,” Moira says, before the table lurches forward, and Gabriel slides off.

He lands in the water with a splash, and for a moment he’s stunned by it, by the feeling of sheer pleasure that comes with being back in his natural element; it’s only the gentle impact of his body on the sandy bottom of the tank that has him moving, his tail slashing through the water to propel him forward in a jet of motion, body cutting through the water, racing through the tank with nothing but elation.

He’d forgotten how good it felt to swim again.

But there’s a scent in the water that he’s starting to notice, as the joy wears off; he slows to take in a deep draw of water, to more accurately read just what it is that he’s sharing this tank with, and finds himself utterly baffled when he realizes just what the scent is.

Another mer.

It’s a revelation that has Gabriel gasping, a wild thread of hope racing through his blood--he’s never been the most social of mers, even when he had a family and friends to be with, but his months of isolated captivity have made him so lonely that he physically aches for company. He looks around the tank, trying to peer through the artificial grasses and rocks to find his tankmate; and when his search comes up empty, he calls out into the open water, “Hello?” He turns around with a swift lash of his tail, searching the space behind him. “Is anyone there?”

Instead of a voice, it’s a ripple through the water that answers him; and Gabriel jerks back around, following the source of the disruption to a large boulder, sitting near the tank wall. He slowly starts toward it, cautious as the mer-scent only grows stronger the closer he gets. 

“Hello?” he tries again, his voice softer this time; and there’s a flicker of movement in response, a flash of green as the tip of a tail briefly appears from behind the rock before withdrawing again. Gabriel frowns as he comes nearer, uncertain now of what he will find. “Please, come out….I won’t hurt you, I promise. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anyone…”

He trails off, and maybe it’s the plea in his voice that finally convinces the stranger to move--regardless, a heartbeat later finds Gabriel watching as another mer finally swims out from behind the rock. He’s young, skinnier than Gabriel, his scales a bright green streaked with a dark dorsal stripe and his underbelly white; his hair is dark and messy, but these are not the features that have Gabriel staring.

No; Gabriel finds himself transfixed and awed by the large mahogany antlers that crown the mer’s head and the huge fins that line his spine, the two long, thin specialized fins that trail from the base of his skull down to his dark arms. He’s seen this kind of mer only once before, and it was in passing--and he’d been just as fascinated by the sight then, too.

“You’re one of the royals,” Gabriel says, his voice soft with disbelief; the features are enough to give it away, even though this particular mer is without the gold jewelry that Gabriel has come to associate with his kind. “You...what’s your name? How did you get here?”

“How I got here is a long story,” the mer says, subdued as he settles down on the bottom of the tank, hugging his torso and curling his tail around him. “But you can call me Genji.”


End file.
